War Stories: Vernal Allen

World War II erupted unexpectedly, frighteningly and dramatically for me, and changed forever my outlook on life, just as it did for everyone else who lived through it.

I was a seventh-grader, living with my family in Wyoming on Pearl Harbor Day. We shared fear and anger, and knew positively that we would soon defeat this new enemy. The next day at school, teachers and students alike talked of nothing else.

After the initial shock of being at war, life in our small town changed drastically. My family became news junkies, listening to every newscast and Movie Tone News program that came along. We and our neighbors responded to the calls from our government to buy War Bonds and stamps, and take Red Cross first aid classes. School kids were released from school to collect scrap metal. We accepted as necessary food, gas, and shoe rationing. Although we lived over 1,500 miles from the Pacific Coast, we had air raid drills, complete with rigorously enforced blackouts. Everyone I knew was extremely patriotic, and believed that our small sacrifices would help win the war.

All of these events took place as the reality of war began to replace some of the bravado we all felt early on. Everyone seemed to be on the move. New people came to town to build a detention camp for war prisoners, who, after being brought to town on trains, were put to work in the nearby sugar beet fields. We kids would watch them being taken by trucks through town and would wave at them guiltily. We were surprised to realize that they were just a little older than we, probably about 17.

The War Department needed more and more men. The war became very personal as so many of the young men either enlisted or were drafted. Our high school principal and most of our male teachers left. Then high school juniors were given high school diplomas if they enlisted. Troop trains took them away. The trains, several cars long, came through town on a regular basis. On them were boys from all over the country, and then our own, on the way to Farragut, Idaho, or Fort Lewis.

Their departure was always a festive occasion, on the surface, with town dignitaries, families and school friends to see them off. The boys were excited about leaving, and the rest of us smiled and waved as the train pulled out. We would stand around until it was out of sight, then cry on the way home, already counting the days till the letters would start arriving. News was slow to come, and all too soon we would hear about injuries, death and imprisonment.

Then I knew something of the real meaning of war. I never doubted its necessity, but I know that one never gets over the heartache and grief that accompanies the separations, injuries, and deaths that affected us all. To this day, this knowledge gives me my most poignant memories.

-- Vernal Allen

Yakima

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